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State Sen. Parker, Senate Co-Sponsor, with rank and file members

Cuomo Signs Cleaner Assault Bill in Victory for TWU Local 100

ALBANY, August 19 – NY Governor Andrew Cuomo today signed into law a bill that fulfills a key objective of Local 100 – increasing penalties for any assault on a MTA/NYCT Station or Terminal Cleaner.

“Subway cleaners have been the victims of unprovoked, unwarranted and unacceptable attacks while working among the 6 million daily riders,” said President John Samuelsen. “This bill, which we fought long and hard for, gives them protection. The tougher penalties should deter anyone from harming a subway cleaner. If they don’t, police, prosecutors and judges should seek the maximum sentence.”

The Governor said: "These workers perform tasks that are vital to the operation of New York institutions and have increasingly become the targets of aggression and assaults. Signing these measures into law will help better protect these employees from harm and I thank the sponsors for their work to get them passed.”

TWU mounted a sustained political effort highlighted by a dedicated lobby day on May 24 in which rank and file Cleaners got on the bus to personally make their case to legislators. Several assaults on transit cleaners have highlighted the dangers facing them on a daily basis – especially women who work alone on platforms late at night. Many who attended used their own personal time. Multiple titles from Stations were represented, including RRSW’s, S/A’s and of course CTA’s. The trip and overall lobbying effort was organized by TWU’s Political Action Director, Marvin Holland, and his able staff.

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Assemblywoman Diana C. Richardson, (at left) who spearheaded the legislation in the Assembly, said, “I thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership in protecting the rights of our hardworking brothers and sisters in New York State. No employee should have to work facing the threat of assault and this legislation will help ensure a hardworking and dedicated part of our workforce is properly protected under the law. I am proud to stand with the Governor on this issue and thank him for signing this important piece of legislation.”

Senator Kevin Parker said, “I enthusiastically applaud Governor Cuomo for signing my legislation, Senate Bill S. 8104-A, into law as the passage of this bill increases the penalty for assaulting our MTA station and terminal workers to a class D felony. Although laws were enacted in 2002 to protect and deter assaults on transit employees while performing their duties, the law did not include station and terminal workers. Today, thanks to Governor Cuomo and my colleagues in the State Legislature, station and terminal workers will be added to the list of covered MTA employees. I am extremely proud to be a part of this milestone achievement and I stand eager to continue working with the Governor and Legislature to pass laws that improve the quality of life of New York State residents.”

CTA Darren Johnson, with Stations VP Derrick Echevarria and Rep Paul Flores, who responded to the scene

CTA's Heroic Day

by PETE DONOHUE

August 18, MANHATTAN -- CTA Darren Johnson took out the trash – after chasing it down.

Johnson chased a subway groper up four flights of stairs and escalators at a very deep subway station in Manhattan and held the molester for the police. The man took off after Johnson confronted him for assaulting a 25-year-old woman while she waited with a young child for an elevator on the northbound platform of the 63^rd St./Lexington Ave. station Wednesday morning.

“I didn’t want him to get away because maybe he would do it again to someone else,” Johnson said. “I have a 17-year-old daughter. When you hear about something like this you think that it could have been your daughter or mother or someone that you know.”

Police charged the suspect, Leonardo San Juan Godinez, 20, of Queens, with forcible touching and sex abuse, and led him from the 63^rd St./Lexington Ave. station in handcuffs, authorities said. Johnson was in uniform on the platform when the visibly-upset woman pleaded for help. “That guy just fondled me,” she said. “He just groped me.” Johnson called out to Godinez to stop walking when Godinez bolted. Johnson pursued him up 106 steps before catching him near the turnstiles in front of the token booth. “He reached into his pocket like he was going to grab something and I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to get stabbed here,’ “Johnson said. “I grabbed both his arms and held him.”

The station agent alerted the RCC and the police. Johnson didn’t have much time to catch his breath. Minutes after the police and suspect left, Johnson was in the booth getting a NYC Transit form to file his report when someone ran to the booth and said there was fire up by the street entrance. Johnson grabbed the fire extinguisher and extinguished the blaze, crediting his training from the union and NYCT with knowing how to handle the situation calmly.

“This was the craziest day of my life,” he said. Dan Rivoli, transit reporter for the New York Daily News, predicted Johnson would be nominated for a Hometown Heroes in Transit Award, which honors exemplary bus and subway workers. “I don’t feel like a hero,” he humbly said. “I feel like anyone should try and help in a situation like this.”

Station Agent Percillia Agustine-Soverall

Career Criminal Arrested in Arson Attack on Station Agent

A career criminal with five felony convictions was arrested on Tuesday and charged with lighting up a gasoline-soaked rag and shoving it into the money slot of a station booth to force the NYCT Station Agent to give up cash. The late-night attack last Friday at the Nostrand Avenue station on the #3 line in Crown Heights left Station Agent Percillia Agustine-Soverall "crying and in shock" when the halon system in the booth came on to douse the fire, filling the booth with a white cloud of fire retardant.

Daily News reporter Dan Rivoli reported the story and you can read it here.

President Samuelsen told Rivoli: "This was a cowardly, evil act against a transit worker who was simply doing her job. New York is able to work because we run the subways and buses every day. But our members face countless dangers, including arson attacks, while providing this vital public service."

Everett Robinson, 51, who has been charged with the crime, was arraigned today in Brooklyn Criminal Court. He has an extensive rap sheet including a five-year stint in jail for robbery. TWU Local 100 is demanding that Robinson pay the maximum possible penalty for this horrific crime against a transit worker. We will be holding a rally outside the courthouse to coincide with the next important court date for this case, and will need your support. Stay tuned for our updates.

TWU Local100 Endorses Marisol Alcantara for State Senate in the 31st District

TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen threw the support of the 42,000-strong union behind state Senate candidate Marisol Alcantara on Tuesday. Joined by dozens of transit workers at Local 100’s headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, Samuelsen announced Local 100’s endorsement of Alcantara for the 31st District seat being vacated by Sen. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx). The diverse district stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side through Washington Heights and includes Riverdale, Marble Hill and Hamilton Heights.

“We’re here to say that Marisol Alcantara is the trade unionist in this race,” Samuelsen said. “She is trade union to the core. We welcome another ally in Albany.” Alcantara, an organizer for the New York State Nurses Association, told the gathered transit workers that she will fight for legislation blocking the city from arresting Bus Operators after accidents under a misguided Vision Zero law signed by Mayor de Blasio. She also will fight for pension parity so that newly hired transit workers enjoy the same benefits as more veteran workers.

Alcantara said good union transit jobs are a critical path to the middle class. “My mother is a transit worker,” she said. “My mother was able to get a pension, paid vacation and sick days. For an immigrant family, for a woman of color, getting a union job is like hitting the lottery.”

Espaillat recently won the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District race. “This is a lady who stands on her own two feet,” he said at the Union Hall. “I listen to her and I know that we will not always agree, because she is her own person, as she should be – because leadership is about that. Nobody understands transit better than Marisol Alcantara because her family comes from transit workers.”

Enjoy the Show! TWU at the Dominican Day Parade 2016

TWU’ers Show Pride in Dominican Heritage

It was 10 degrees cooler and a little less humid in the Dominican Republic on Sunday August 14 than it was on 6th Avenue in Manhattan. But that didn’t seem to matter to the estimated 32,000 marchers from TWU Local 100 and 400 other groups who participated in sweltering heat this year’s Dominican Day Parade. Thousands more waved a sea of red, white and blue Dominican flags and cheered from the sidewalks on the mile-long march from just north of Herald Square past Bryant Park to 52nd Street.

State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who is poised to become the first Dominican-American to be elected to the U.S. Congress after his recent victory in the New York Congressional primary for the 13th CD, put on a TWU cap and marched the entire parade route with the union delegation. City Councilman Ydannis Rodriquez also marched with TWU. The festivities for the sizeable TWU contingent, led by President John Samuelsen and Vice Presidents Richard Davis, Derick Echevarria and Kia Phua, kicked off at 11:00am with a sidewalk “brunch” of traditional Dominican food provided by the union.

Public Advocate Letitia “Tish” James stopped by to pay her respects and take some photos with the TWU group. A number of members came straight from work to show their pride in their Dominican heritage.

Union Focuses on Contract Campaign

TWU Local 100 on Twitter

Pres. Samuelsen discusses strategic campaign for MTA contract (expires 1/16/17) with top officers, div. chairs #1upic.twitter.com/f7KvBDMhfw

TWU Local 100 officers, staff and Division Chairs gathered August 1-2, 2016 to discuss goals and tactics for the union’s campaign to win a fair, on time contract for TA/OA and MTA Bus members. Those agreements with the MTA expire at midnight January 15, 2017.

Local 100 President John Samuelsen chaired the two-day workshop and expressed his desire to bring home successor agreements on or before the January 16 expiration date.

Samuelsen said that the union’s leadership and membership showed great restraint and patience during the last contract go-round because “the MTA, the region and the entire nation for that matter faced a genuine economic crisis.”

But, said Samuelsen, those mitigating factors no longer exist. “The MTA is in a stronger financial situation than it was in 2012. I fully expect that if the MTA negotiates in good faith we should be able to win a contract we can all be proud by January 15, 2017.”

Samuelsen said, however, that if the negotiations sour the union will be ready for all contingencies. “We obviously have certain lines-in-the-sand concerning jobs and protection of our work that we will not allow the MTA to cross.”

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TWU Bringing Blue Collar Jobs Back

BY PETE DONOHUE

JULY 27 -- Manufacturing in New York state and the rest of the country will get a potential $3.2 billion shot in the arm, thanks to the Transport Workers Union of America and a national campaign to bring blue-collar jobs back to our cities and towns. After more than a year of advocacy by TWU leadership, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Gov. Cuomo’s office agreed to offer railcar producers additional incentives to increase manufacturing in the United States, instead of shipping the work overseas. Bids for an estimated $3.2 billion contract to build 1,025 MTA subway cars will be rated in part on the strength of their “U.S. Employment Plan,” transit officials said Monday. The MTA is instructing potential bidders to include in their Employment Plans such information as the number of domestic jobs they would create, where they would create them and what wages they’d pay employees.

"This is a huge win for workers in New York and across the United States," TWU of America Executive Vice President John Samuelsen said. "Taxpayer dollars that are used to buy equipment like subway cars should create good quality manufacturing jobs here, not overseas. We in TWU urge transit agencies across the country to adopt a similar pledge to use the power of local tax dollars to create good middle class jobs in their own regions.”

This is pretty wonky stuff – not the standard fare for most mainstream media outlets, which often are more focused on scandals, shocking violence and celebrity items. But Samuelsen and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. secured a good bit of prime real estate in The New York Daily News on July 14 with a convincing Op-Ed piece that urged the MTA to put strong job-related language in the railcar RFP. Jobs To Move America, a coalition that includes labor, environmental and civil rights groups, provided the MTA with a blueprint and legal framework for crafting a U.S. Employment, along with data from academics. Good stuff that could put a lot of men and women to work and help reinvigorate our neighborhoods.

Assault Sentence Lauded by Transit Union

A transit worker finally got justice.

A knife-wielding lunatic slashed Bus Operator John Browne on the neck in Brownsville, Brooklyn, nearly two years ago.

Last month, Browne watched a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice sentence his attacker, Alfredo Perez, to four years in state prison. “Today is a victory for me and for all Bus Operators,” Browne said. “Mr. Perez assaulted me and today he paid the consequences. I’m pleased in my heart, and I would like to see more of these kinds of actions by the justice system.”

Browne was concerned – and rightly so – that Justice Michael Gary might simply sentence Perez, 31, to probation, counseling and community service, or to a month or so in a local jail. Judges and prosecutors rarely if ever throw the book at criminals who abuse and assault Bus Operators, Train Conductors and other vulnerable transit workers. But Gary said Perez’s actions were far too serious to warrant a slap on the wrist. He also cited a pre-sentencing evaluation that concluded there was a “moderate to high risk” Perez would commit violence again if freed.

Browne was waiting outside a bodega for an MTA tow truck to come for his disabled bus when Perez, a walking time bomb, erupted. Perez apparently thought Browne, a soft-spoken married father of six kids, was looking inappropriately at his girlfriend. So, spewing curses, Perez charged Browne and slashed him with his knife, causing an approximately six-inch gash. Browne is permanently disfigured with a raised, puffy and painful-looking scar. It starts behind his left ear and extends down onto his neck. “He could have killed me,” Browne said after the sentencing. “My kids could be growing up without a father. My wife could be left without a husband.”

Before leaving the courthouse, Browne told said he wanted his case to serve both as a warning and an example. “If you assault a Bus Operator you are going to get caught,” Browne said. “You are going to be arrested and sentenced to prison.”

TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen struck a similar note in an interview with The Chief-Leader newspaper. “Hopefully, we’ve turned a corner on the problem now, and hopefully that becomes the norm rather than the exception,” Samuelsen said. “Until judges and others start looking at assaults on transit workers as a heinous event against society we’ll see subpar sentences.

Free “One World” Tix for Members Who Served at 9/11

The 9/11 Tribute Center, which honors the memory of those who died at Ground Zero and who participated in the rescue and recovery effort, is making available free tickets to the One World Observatory atop Freedom Tower to TWU Local 100 members who were part of the 9/11 response. The offer came as a result of the cooperation between Local 100 and the Tribute Center to recognize the contributions of transit workers to the rescue and recovery effort, which will culminate in a major memorial this September 7^th on the 15 year mark. In order to obtain the tickets, Local 100 members must first register with the Tribute Center at http://tributewtc.org/observatory. Every member who registers as a 9/11 responder at this link can claim two tickets to the Observatory with one week’s advance notice.